Fast Action Protocol adopted for 2018 Mobile World Congress, by Luis Fernández-Novoa, HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER

The city of Barcelona will host again from 26 February to 1 March 2018 the Mobile World Congress (MWC), the biggest gathering worldwide of the mobile communications industry.

This year, as has been the case since 2015, the Barcelona Patent Courts, being aware of the greater litigiousness that an event of this nature can bring out, once again adopted the so-called “fast-action” protocol to deal with the urgent interim relief applications filed during and on the occasion of the MWC for the infringement of the participating companies’ IP rights.

Indeed, this global exhibition provides for an environment where the cutting-edge technological advances and new launches within the industry are presented, including new devices, applications, software or functionalities. This, in turn, can easily give rise to intellectual property related conflicts between participating companies, not only in the patent arena, but also involving other kind of rights including –without limitation– copyrights or industrial designs.

Thus this protocol is aimed to provide swift and urgent relief to right-holders (required by the temporary nature of the MWC itself) while safeguarding the proper defense rights of any potential infringers, including the right to be heard.

A complete copy of the contribution can be read here.